Many prior art devices and methods have heretofore been designed for heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) systems.
Some of the HVAC systems have been designed for raised access floor systems. Other HVAC systems have been designed for hollow core slab systems.
Raised access floor systems generally comprise a series of spaced apart pedestals which are supported at the lower end thereof on a concrete floor while the upper end thereof supports a series of panels defining a raised floor. The space between the said raised floor and concrete floor defines a cavity or floor plenum. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,775,001 relates to the design of air terminal devices used in raised floor air supply plenum systems while U.S. Pat. No. 6,209,330 relates to an air handler based on chilled water as the cooling source for cooling computer rooms.
Under floor air distribution systems using the floor plenum of the raised access floor as a supply air pathway is a proven technology and growing significantly in the North America market place. The most current versions of raised access floors utilize infloor air terminals which are either manually or automatically adjustable and control the amount of air delivered to the occupancy above the floor from a lightly pressurized infloor plenum. The terminals or diffusers are generally pressure dependent and deliver predictable air flow based on stable infloor pressure whereby the volume of air to the occupied space is a function of the floor plenum air pressure and the number of infloor terminals and their open status. This pressure is maintained as a constant by infloor pressure sensors providing information to the building control system to control the speed of the fan delivering air to the floor plenum all in a manner well known to persons skilled in the art. The fan volume generally varies to keep the pressure maintained.
Hollow core/slab integrated ventilation air conditioning and heating technology and applications are also well known and widely used in Scandinavian countries. For example U.S. Pat. No. 4,124,062 relates to a system of passing air from outside a building through channels in a concrete floor so as to cool the concrete thereby storing the coolness which is then transferred to the room in the following day. Furthermore U.S. Pat. No. 4,830,275 relates to temperature control of buildings having prefabricated hollow concrete slabs or concrete floor structures with cast in ducts where cooled supply air flows through the floor structure before it is supplied by way of supply air device to the room unit on the floor.
Generally speaking these hollow core slab structures are thermally charged by running warm or cold air through the hollow cores to set their thermal mass at a temperature capable of radiating or absorbing heat to and from the occupied space. In addition, the air running through the slab is released into the space to further support heating or more often a cooling mode of operation. The majority of these systems are applied with the active hollow core located above the occupancy at the ceiling. At the ceiling and in the cooling mode the slab provides a cold radiant effect to the space below as well as absorbing heat build up from the space through convection between room air and the hollow core slabs. Such systems have good thermal inertial and mass thermal storage/absorption capabilities.
Furthermore it is known that the under floor and hollow core technologies have been combined. However, such combination did not allow the hollow core slab supporting the raised floor to release the air carried through its core into the raised floor supply air plenum.
It is an object of this invention to provide an improved heat exchange and ventilating system.